Looking For A Silver Lining

We were in Court again today; round five in the ongoing struggle with The Husband's ex-wife for custody of his girls. Unfortunately, she won this time. The case will be moved to her home county, where the Judges are more liberal than they are here in "Redneckville". My impression is that she thinks in her county, it will be deemed perfectly normal for a mother to consistently leave her children home alone on a regular basis, and that she will be applauded for abandoning them with no care or maternal contact for 15 days to swan off to Nigeria to do "God's Work". And the sad thing is, she may be right; Judges are loath to take custody from the mother, even if they are complete morons.

The maddening side effect of this is that they must return to her care for the upcoming school year. She left the Courtroom today with a smug little smile; I have no doubt the situation for the girls will not change. She will continue to leave the 14 year old in charge of the younger one, they will have no life outside their tiny little apartment, and they will continue to go unsupervised until they fail school, get pregnant or worse.

What really makes me see red is that she CHOOSES this life for them. It's not like she's some poor single mother on the Welfare with no choices. She's a fricking psychologist with a well paying job. She could move closer to her work, but she just doesn't want to. She could afford to get them into some kind of after school program, but she just doesn't want to. She could go to mediation with her ex-husband and try to work out a deal that's acceptable to all, but she just doesn't want to. It's all about her. And God talks to her and tells her she's right. I'm not making that up, by the way, that's what she says. Often. This is a woman whose MySpace page name is "Beloved", as in "Beloved by God". See, it's stuff like this that makes normal people hate Evangelicals, but that's another topic for another day.

You'll have to pardon me, I am feeling somewhat bitter this evening. I can't remember when I have detested another human being as much as I detest this woman. Even when I was in the midst of my own breakup with The Wanker, I always tried to take the high road for the sake of our child. As a result, we have a cordial relationship and a fairly well-adjusted little girl. I'm not saying it was easy, or that there weren't times I wanted to sock him in the nose, but somehow I managed to rise above all the nastiness. And I am glad for my own sake, if nothing else.

What's bothering me is that I can't seem to do that now. I have had a daydream or three that she will be hit by a bus. I am trying to rise above it, but failing miserably at the moment. I keep wondering why she won't do the right thing by her kids, and why it seems she'd rather we both spend thousands of dollars of future college money fighting each other instead of thinking about what's best for all of us.

Intellectually, I'm pretty sure that things will work out for us in the long-term, but my heart aches for those two girls in the here and now.